Seismic Shift
by drdit92
Summary: One shot for the end of Disciple. I just couldn't get it out of my head. Disclaimer; if I owned them, I wouldn't be working like a dog.


**A/N: I really liked Disciple. Creepy, great case, etc. But my god, the ending was art on another level. Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion completely nailed this scene. I've watched it several more times on instant video and have seen aspects of it that I just didn't appreciate on viewing the first time around. Like how Stana's entire body jerks in fear at one point. It's marvelous how without any words they impart perfectly their fear and apprehension/ grief/everything else. Amazing. Anyway, I couldn't get it out of my head, so here is my very first one shot! Hope you like it.**

* * *

Kate hung up the phone, frustrated with the information. Rick was sitting on the couch, the pen that had taunted them from Kelly Nieman's office playing between his fingers as he waited for her.

"So, all of the electronic records from the 3XK cases were deleted too."

She had moved to the couch, sitting down near him. She didn't touch him, didn't want to be distracted by his physical presence and her response to it before they finished discussing the implications of the case.

"Not only that, but it looks like our victims took evidence and files from twenty six other unsolved murders."

She still can't believe how thoroughly they'd been wiped of the vital information in those files. Even though Jerry Tyson was dead, those particular files in the wrong hands could be a catastrophe.

"More murders committed by Tyson?" He asks a reasonable question, one she's been wondering herself. But she knows she can't afford to pin everything on the obvious bogeyman and possibly miss the real culprit.

"Or Kelly Nieman." She lifts her shoulder and her hand, indicating that she's not sure. "I don't know Castle, I'm starting to think she'd be capable of it too."

She looks him squarely in the eyes. Nieman had freaked her out more than she could put into words. Tyson had obviously affected her deeply, maybe started her on this path before his death. Or had his death driven her to this, as a twisted homage to his dark, evil soul? Either way, it was deep trouble for them all, and the way she'd disappeared?

"Tyson sure did pick the right woman." He's not wrong there. Nieman had been the perfect partner for a dead serial killer. "Plus she can change his appearance, maybe she already has."

Good lord, he still believed Tyson was alive. On the one hand, his unwavering belief was admirable. He believed so deeply sometimes she had twinges of doubt. Then she'd remember that Tyson had been shot _multiple_ times _and _fallen off a bridge into water over 100 feet below. It would be hard to survive that fall _without_ bullet holes, but with them? Yeah, he was dead. She understood why Rick wanted to believe otherwise; why he might have to believe. Tyson had introduced a level of fear in Rick far beyond any he'd ever known in his life before. He'd become an antihero of sorts; a cockroach that could survive even a nuclear holocaust and continue to live on. But she'd seen evil so often through the years, she'd never put Tyson on the pedestal Rick had him on. Was he smart and resourceful? Sure, more than the average bear. But nearly infallible and immortal? Not a chance.

"You're still assuming that he's alive." She turns away, tries to keep her annoyance at his certitude out of her voice. Tries. Fails.

"Aren't you?" His simple question draws her eyes back to him. She wants him to hear her, understand. Apparently he reads her perfectly.

"He **must** be. Otherwise why orchestrate all this to steal the files?"

"Well, maybe she just wanted to keep his memory alive, or his legacy." There are probably other explanations, but this is the one that made the most sense.

He turns back to examining the pen again, not looking at her. "Well, that makes her just as dangerous as he is." She hears his words, recognizes he's throwing her a compromise here. He'll consider her suspect; acknowledge that she could be right about the whole thing. That it was Nieman all along. But she can't do the same for him. Yet she knows that he knows she can't. It's too big a jump for her mind that believes in logic and evidence she can taste, feel, touch. She loves him even a little more for letting her have this.

He continues. "She's still out there, somewhere, with Jerry Tyson or without him."

Suddenly the pen he's been playing with the whole time yields another secret. There's a flash drive inside, yielded when Rick accidentally opened the pen in the middle. She can't help but wonder what twisted message they are about to be subjected to.

Rick looks at her questioningly; they both know neither really wants to see the message but also know it might be a clue or the key to tracking Nieman down.

Rick goes to put the drive in his laptop. She remains frozen on the couch for a few minutes, but then rises to go join him in the study. By now the flash drive should be open and ready to reveal whatever Nieman had left for them. As she walks towards the door, music suddenly wafts around her, bouncing off the hard surfaces of the loft like a concert hall. A concert for just the two of them.

_We'll meet again_

It brings her to a jerking halt. She can't process any other brain function, can't think. The music hammers into her, making her smaller and smaller. She feels her heart start to race as a surge of adrenaline rages through her arteries and the smell of fear pours from her sweat glands.

_don't know where, don't know when_

He's turned to look at her. She knows this, though it's like she's looking at him through a long, dark tunnel. The lights, warmth and coziness of the loft have disappeared. She feels cold, trembling. She'll never be warm again.

_but I know we'll meet again_

Her entire body jerks physically with this line. She is sinking beneath an icy lake, precious oxygen leaking from her as she forgets to breathe.

_some sunny day_

He's approaching, but even he cannot save her now. He stares at her with a mixture of fear and grief. Fear for her, for them. Grief for the fact that now she knows too; shares this terrible burden he had been carrying alone, for so long. While he'd wanted her to trust him, he would have gladly carried the burden alone if only to keep her from feeling the entirety of its weight. She is drowning in a black hole of fear, has lost her lodestone. The knowledge that this song has imparted is sinking her down, down, down. And it cannot be shifted off now. Now she knows.

_keep smiling through_

The only warmth in her is the tears welling in her eyes. It makes him blurry, his outline wavers before her. He cannot get closer without risking falling under the ice with her. Part of her knows he's already done this and somehow made it to the other side. She's not sure she is as strong as he is and part of her just wants to give up now. She's been through a lot in her life, a crucible in many ways. But she's not tempered for this. Not for this.

_just like you always do_

This cannot be happening. Yet the music plays on. She is the unwilling viewer of this future. For she knows perfectly well what everything means. He will be taken from her. And she knows with every atom of her body that it will be her end. For he is the glue that has bound all the broken pieces together, made her a whole that was more than the pieces alone could ever have added up to. He is synergy. Without him, there is no light, no meaning, no need to exist. Far beyond the death of her mother would be his removal from her. She cannot survive it and there is no way to ameliorate this threat.

'_til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away_

Jerry Tyson is alive.


End file.
